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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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The job is to ask questions — it always was — and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.
Arthur Miller1915–2005National Observer (January 20, 1964)
- Wisdom
I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme… If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.
Doris Lessing1919–2013“Literature Nobel Awarded to Writer Doris Lessing” All Things Considered NPR (11 October 2007)
- Experience
The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.
Grace Kelly1929–1982Attributed to Kelly in: Robert Andrews Ed. (1987) The Routledge dictionary of quotations
- Freedom
- Journalism
Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.
George Orwell1903–1950“Why I Write”, Gangrel (Summer 1946)
- Politics
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to John Norvell (11 June 1807)
- Journalism
- Truth & Lies
Since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Jefferson’s Second Inaugural Address (1805)
‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Chapter IXIn context
- Advice
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
Jane Austen1775–1817Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter XLVIIIIn context
Only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 5In context
- Reading
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.
Herman Melville1819–1891Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter CIVIn context
If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances.
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804–1864The Scarlet Letter (1850), The Custom-HouseIn context
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
Mark Twain1835–1910Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), NoticeIn context
- Comedy
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
Mark Twain1835–1910Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter IIn context
- Truth & Lies
When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop⁠—that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.
Mark Twain1835–1910The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), ConclusionIn context
- Marriage
To him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.
Joseph Conrad1857–1924Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context